BALTIMORE — After 170 days in prison in both the U.S. and El Salvador, Kilmar Abrego García won his fight to be released from prison on parole Aug. 22. The wrongfully detained 30-year-old apprentice sheet metal worker and member of SMART Local 100 from Beltsville, Maryland, was deported March 15 and flown illegally to the CECOT prison in El Salvador where he was tortured. His union has been part of his defense from the beginning.
He was returned to the U.S. in June and thrown into a jail cell in Nashville, Tennessee, where he faces a frame-up charge of “human smuggling.” A Homeland Security agent testified that authorities didn’t begin considering these charges until this April, when the government faced pressure to return Abrego García to the U.S.
Nashville Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr. ruled Abrego García must be released from jail while awaiting trial, because the government had failed to show he is a danger or a flight risk. And, the judge said, the government’s case was a “poor attempt to tie Abrego to MS-13,” the Salvadoran gang Immigration and Customs Enforcement claims he was smuggling for.
With virtually no evidence, the U.S. government repeats its smears that Abrego García is a MS-13 member. In fact he came to the U.S. when he was 16, fleeing gang threats against his family in El Salvador.
On Aug. 25 President Donald Trump doubled down on slandering Abrego García, saying he “beat the hell out of his wife; his wife is afraid to even talk about him.” But she’s been at the forefront of his defense, saying they love each other. ICE has now given Abrego García two choices, either plead guilty to the “human smuggling” charge and be deported to Costa Rica, or refuse and be deported to Uganda.
The fight to defend Abrego García, is helping win broader support in the labor movement for the fight for amnesty for all immigrants in the U.S., crucial to unify the working class.
Reunited with family and supporters
After Judge Crenshaw ordered his release Aug. 22, Abrego García’s lawyers organized his travel to Maryland, where he was reunited with his family — his wife, Jennifer Vásquez Sura, three children, his mother, his brother César — and supporters from CASA, the immigrant rights group that defends him.
Three days later, he addressed 200 supporters here before reporting to an 8 a.m. mandatory check-in at the ICE office. “I say with pride today, remember that I was free and reunited with my family. This was a miracle, thanks to God and to the community. Thank you to each of you who marched, who lifted your voices, and continue to fight in my name.” He was interrupted with chants of “Sí, se puede,” “Todos somos Kilmar.”
“Regardless of what happens here today with ICE, promise me this — you will keep believing in dignity and freedom, not just for me,” he said, “for everyone.”
With his wife and César by his side, as well as his lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, he went in. The protest continued, as supporters chanted and picketed outside. Postal workers, teachers, hotel workers, sheet metal workers and others carried handmade signs such as, “Kilmar belongs with his family, not in Uganda.”
“This is not about immigrants. It is about the plight of the working class. People are angry. David Huerta, a member of my union, was picked up in Los Angeles for doing what we are doing here — protesting. He still faces charges,” Jaime Contreras, executive vice president of the 20,000-strong Service Employees International Union 32BJ in the D.C. metropolitan region, told the crowd.
Barely 45 minutes later Sandoval-Moshenberg came out and told the crowd a masked ICE agent had shackled Abrego García and took him into custody. “Abrego García is being punished for exercising his constitutional rights, for refusing to enter a guilty plea when he is innocent, for demanding a trial by a jury of his peers, with the right to an appeal.”
Sandoval-Moshenberg told the crowd how important their actions are. Abrego García told him, he said, that when he was in CECOT in El Salvador he didn’t know he had any support.
“At SMART, we fight for the principle of due process every single day. We stand for the fundamental American value that all our members, and everyone in this country, are innocent until proven guilty,” SMART National President Michael Coleman said in a union statement. “Let’s be very clear: Kilmar deserves his day in court.”
Shortly after being detained again, Abrego García filed an application for asylum in the U.S. His attorneys notified the U.S. government that he fears deportation to Uganda, where he believes he could be tortured. He said he worries that Uganda will send him back to El Salvador, where he was threatened and tortured.
“They’re holding Costa Rica as a carrot and using Uganda as a stick,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
For now, Abrego García is in ICE detention in Virginia. The only visits he’s permitted are from his wife and his attorneys. On Aug. 27, Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland ruled that the U.S. government is prohibited from deporting Abrego García while she handles his case. She set a hearing for Oct. 6.
“The Trump administration’s decision to detain Kilmar again is retaliation against this family for daring to demand justice,” Ama Frimpong, CASA’s legal director, told the Militant. “We will show up for him on Oct. 6, loudly proclaiming that we are all Kilmar!”